New Head of School joins IMS

LAKEVILLE— Soja Field came alive on Thursday, Oct. 16 as Indian Mountain School staff, trustees, students and their families came out to see Lisa Sun installed as the institution’s 11th head of school in a lively ceremony that emphasized community, leadership and connection to the landscape.

She joins the school after a 30-year career of teaching and school administration across the northeast and mid-Atlantic.

Former Head of School Jody Reilly Soja formally welcomed Sun to the pre-k through ninth grade boarding school. Soja left the post in 2024 to lead the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut, but said that the school remains in the capable hands of a “hardworking, humble and visionary leader” with Sun.

While Sun officially assumed the role in July, Thursday’s proceedings allowed her to reflect on the warm welcome she’s received from faculty and students alike. “How are you settling in?” she recalled one student asked early in her tenure, which is not a question she’s received from many middle schoolers, she said to laughs from the crowd.

Aside from reflective remarks, the occasion also offered a venue for the student body’s musical propensities to shine. A student band soundtracked the procession of Sun and IMS student council members with the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.” Shortly after, the entire Lower Campus — pre-k and elementary school — sang “Sisi ni Moja” (“We Are One”) by Jacob Narverud and “Consider Yourself” from the musical “Oliver!” to the several-hundred-person crowd as 24 flags from across the globe billowed behind them.

Eighth-graders Jasper Burger and Sasha Leven performed a track of their own, accompanied by fellow student Kes Simmonds, that they had composed specifically for the event titled “A Million Nights.”

Others to speak at the event were Assistant Head of School Alex Hodosy, Board of Trustees President David Nuzum and former IMS student council President José Jiménez Rodríguez, who is now a senior at The Hotchkiss School.

Members of the current student council gave advice to Sun from those “who really know what’s going on – the students,” said President Roberta Craig de Silva, which included suggestions of “less homework” and “no dress code.”

One particularly well-researched sixth grader pitched for “more recess time,” complete with citations from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The jury is out on whether those demands will come to pass, but Sun emphasized that the students are what it’s all about: “You fill my heart and remind me each day why I love this work.”